What is your opinion on players who do not excessively optimize their characters in order to stay within the...

What is your opinion on players who do not excessively optimize their characters in order to stay within the personality of said character? I am asking this because I'm looking into playing a character whose class people expect a specific set of abilities from.
An example of what I'm talking about would be a Cleric in D&D, people expect them to pick Bless, Bane, Aid and Cure Wounds regardless of their allegiance/religion and personality, and they will dislike you and brand you as 'that guy' if you don't comply with the "meta". (my experience)
I agree that these spells are the most useful and optimal, but they're not always befitting of the cleric's domain.

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I think as long as you explain to the other players that your cleric doesn't worship any sort of healing god and therefore isn't going to be using cure spells all day every day, then it's fine. The important part is making it clear beforehand, so the group doesn't hear that you're making a cleric, and build their own characters around the assumption that you'll be healing.

Granted, depending on the edition, you might be able to heal anyway, but for 5e especially it wouldn't be hard to play a War Cleric or something and forgo such things entirely. Why you wouldn't play a Paladin at that point is questionable, but eh.

>my experience
I'm so very sorry that you have never found anyone but rollplayers to game with. Sincerely and from the bottom of my heart, I am sorry.

To answer your original question, though, I prefer them to powergamers. Powergamers ruin immersion, every time.

Last session I turned down powerful items because it was from someone my character hated. I always put what my character would do first and what makes me powerful second.

>What is your opinion on players who do not excessively optimize their characters in order to stay within the personality of said character?
I think that's fucking fantastic.

>An example of what I'm talking about would be a Cleric in D&D, people expect them to pick [...]
What kind of cocks are you pla-

>they will dislike you and brand you as 'that guy' if you don't comply with the "meta".
Oh. You need new friends mate.

>I agree that these spells are the most useful and optimal, but they're not always befitting of the cleric's domain.
Good fucking on you. Keep on being awesome user.

What they said.

Whenever I'm a player I can't bring myself to care enough about the game to even notice if the other players have optimized anything or not. I let them play however they want without criticism or comment because I know for myself I don't appreciate it.

...

One of my concepts was a grave cleric, I guess you can call it an undead hunter? SHe was trained as part of a Himmelfahrtskommando group of dwarves that were sent into the deep tunnels of their original home cities, which have been cursed to spawn countless numbers of undead. Once sent in there, they were thought to be cursed as well and would eventually turn undead themselves, as such healing and strengthening spells were forbidden and should they be mortally wounded, they would prepare various volatile concoctions and fire spells and walk into the nearest undead-spawning tunnel.
A bit edgy I know, but it was very story relevant, and even dwarves can get desperate if they are forced to fight old.friends and ancestors day in and day out.
Of course this still leaves a wide variety of useful spells for clerics, just not the healing type.

As long as you inform them that you aren't going to fit the role they expect from you. Don't be surprised though when they hire an NPC to fulfil your intended role and kick you out of the party because being an adventurer in D&D is a job and you bet your life on daily basis, so you not doing your job is a risk for them

...

Maybe they like D&D?

very time someone posts this and I ask what is the Definitive "not DND" game that we should all be playing I get zero replies.

I recommend Star Trek Adventures. It's pretty dope.

That's because you're asking a silly question that has no actual answer.

There is no single game that the entirety of Veeky Forums should be playing. We each have different tastes and requirements.

New friends...
It would be funny if it weren't so sad.
I'm surrounded by slavs and bumpkins, I've tried several times to recruit and teach people, but none were interested. I also prefer to play in english, makes it much easier for me to roleplay. Unfortunately our local game shop left a decade ago.

This. I want folks like you in my group OP

Fantasy craft
legends of wulin
warhammer fantasy rpg
M&M
Just for example

Also you're lying, everytime someone asks for a game that isn't D&D and that is better than D&D they get replies, lots, if you don't care to try them or ignore them is not our problem

Nice thing about being alive now is you can have friends on the other side of the planet and still talk to them every day.

My opinion is that they are supposed to be the majority.

I once played a rogue, I didn't put ranks on stealth, nor disable device, perception, diplomacy, bluff or anything useful. I also had low Str and high Dex, but didn't pick Weapon finesse on purpose to not be in combat. It was fantastic seing how the rest of the party died as I drank a potion of invisibility and left because that's what my character woud do.

That doesn't answer my question AND I like D&D. Where do we go from here?

lol, so randumb.

I'd avoid the gamefinder thread. Do you have any online friends that would be interested in playing with you?

Why would your character become and adventurer if he doesn't want to survive? why whould your character be in a team if he doesn't want to be a teamplayer? why would the other characters accept you in their band if you don't bring anything useful to their group?. Sincerely asking.

That's funny, because literally every time you or some other tryhard faggot asks that same question, I see them getting multiple replies along the lines of

I don't know where people who play D&D congregate online aside from Veeky Forums and roll20. I don't really have the time or the nerve to scroll through a thousand open games that might start a month or 5 minutes from now and have barely any description for me to base a character on, so I don't scour roll20 anymore.
What's so terrible about the Gamefinder threads?

>What's so terrible about the Gamefinder threads?
It means you could end up playing with people from Veeky Forums

You are making a lot of assumptions about character motivations.
The story could be about unlikely people forced together by circumstance.

Depends on the game/campaign

Your reply appears to be assuming a lot
You can refer to for an example, the character would still be useful and cover a variety of skills, but for once not the expected ones, such as healing and blessing in the case of a cleric. I wouldn't play a character like

>Why would your character become and adventurer if he doesn't want to survive?
What a shitty thing to assume.

>[Why] whould your character be in a team if he doesn't want to be a teamplayer?
Another really stupid assumption.

>[Why] would the other characters accept you in their band if you don't bring anything useful to their group?
"Sub-optimal" is not synonymous with "useless" user.

This. Imagine playing with one of those entitled butthurt players who post here to say they should get their own way on everything all the time. Imagine playing with one of those people who post in magical realm threads to say they insert fetishes all the time. Imagine playing with one of our resident rollplay plebs who are literally what OP is describing. Veeky Forums has a few non-shitheads but the proportion of worthy to worthless is very much weighted in favour of the latter.

There's a difference between the group expecting one thing and a player going out of their way to be useless.

For example, if the party expects the Rogue to make a typical stealthy trapfinder, and they go for someone better at social or knowledge skills instead, they may still be perfectly able to contribute to the team, just not in the way they expected.

>Why would your character become and adventurer if he doesn't want to survive?
Implying that mechanical optimization = what that character would do in-universe.

>why whould your character be in a team if he doesn't want to be a teamplayer?
Implying that mechanical optimization = what that character would do in-universe.

>why would the other characters accept you in their band if you don't bring anything useful to their group?.
Implying that mechanical optimization = what those characters would do in-universe.

>Sincerely asking.
You mean 'weakly baiting'.

OP didn't seem to imply that, he asked for non optimized character, a cleric with undead spells in an undead game is clearly optimized for the situation

A similar case to OP's would be a cleric in an undead game with spells that deal non lethal damage, fatigue, poison and mind affecting spells

>What's so terrible about the Gamefinder threads?
You could end up playing with pic related.

Not worth the risk.

roasted

You fucking 12 or something? This isn't a coffee house or comedy central.

>It's what my character would do
Could you use other words, these don't help you make your case

For starters you aren't playing alone, you're playing with other people, if your fun is detrimental to other people's fun either find a common groud or leave and find a group more fitting for your kind of playing.

stay buttmad

>make unoptimized character
>dies and get ridiculed by group

>make optimized and efficient character
>dm kills me and bans whatever i made and group calls me a number cruncher

I know it is off from tge op but this shit has me about to quit. It is like i am damned if i do, damned if i dont situation. Made even worse that when i run, they have all tried bribes and cheating or get pissy when their min maxed character hits a wall.

When do you start school?

Your assumption seems to be that in-universe characters understand out-of-character optimizations.
That's a pretty dumb assumption to make. Do you really think that the group's fighter understands that the cleric isn't "optimal" because they picked one mystical ability over another?

Sounds like you also need new friends mate.

The fighter might understand that a cleric who refuses to heal or use useful spells is non desirable in the team

the difference between an optimized character and an unoptimized is only a couple percents on a dice, you can still get killed randomly by crits no matter what your bonuses are

that's why D&D is silly, it focuses on the arbitrary Hasbro numbers but at the end of the day it's all random and people just have fun by talking things outanyway

Sounds like metagaming. Clerics aren't considered to be healbots in-universe.

>the difference between an optimized character and an unoptimized is only a couple percents on a dice, you can still get killed randomly by crits no matter what your bonuses are
Spoke like trully someone who has no idea how D&D works

Stats are ok, but what's really is important is features, spells and feats. You can have a monk with four 18s and rest 14s and be shit, and then have a monk with elite array (15, 14, 13, 12, 10, 8) and literally beat anything in melee...I know this because my first monk ever was the former (went dex, picked TWF and other shit, etc) and it was garbage, the other was in PF a year ago

You're right in if that both pick the same options the difference would be the stats, but optimization is not only stats, at all

I mean the definitive "not D&D" is Pathfinder, but you shouldn't be playing that either.
Which RPG you should be playing depends on what kind of game you want. If you want the narrow experience D&D allows, play that. If you want literally anything else, there are generic and specific systems out there waiting for you.

Really? The Fighter with his 8 int and no skill in religion is going to have a deep understanding about why the Cleric of a god of Fire isn't going around casting healing spells?

Definition from D&D: Clerics combine the helpful magic of healing and inspiring their allies with spells that harm and hinder foes

If you neither heal nor cast useful spells you're non desirable and it isn't metagaming to think such thing because in universe you're supposed to be that

I have been killed for being too good at healing, too resourceful with terrain and good at giving others advantages.

Also, these are deaths like "the death knight charges you at 100yds and hits you for 450 damage.". Or my favorite was a sith teleporting to me because i was giving bonuses and having stuck his saber through me mid teleport.

These same players wabt to be secret antideluvian power level vampires, start with artifact level gear and hordes of minions but want no other player to have these.

Im just worn down and bitchy now it feels.

>8 int
Assuming much?

>no skill in religion
probably, but still assuming much?
Also DC 10 to know what a cleric is and what's the dominions of known Gods are, you can still roll even if you don't have a single rank

I don't know if I'd consider them "friends", but then, I'm the guy who doesn't consider the people I know IRL to be "friends".

How do you call a person "friend" if they don't know you?

>If you neither heal nor cast useful spells
That's broad as shit user, what are you doing? "Cast useful spells" covers the entire spellbook as long as you're being useful about it. "Healbot" and "Utility caster" are worlds apart, don't be silly.

>nor cast useful spells

Where was anyone suggesting the cleric not cast useful spells? He's still a spellcaster. A cleric who refuses to use magic and only hits things with his mace might be a problem, but there's no rule that every cleric has to heal

My GM has an unhealthy obsession with making my squishy wizard character go in massive fights by himself at low levels, and gets surprised when his super assassins with poison that can down our teams tank in one hit annihilate me.

sez you

By using that argument, you've just undermined your first argument too. Good job, now OP has a response you can't refute.

ggnr

>DC 10 to know what a cleric is and what's the dominions of known Gods are

Assuming much?

It's user samefagging, desperately trying to give himself some support. Ignore.

If he casts bless water in a fight against bandits, thats a non useful spell
If he casts color spray against undead thats a non useful spell
I hope you get what I mean, sure, every spell has its use, but the difference between useful almost always and useful when the planets align during a blue moon is pretty big

>First DM was a jerk and a stickler
>Asked for in-character justifications for almost every mechanical choice us players made
>We got tired of it really fast
>Game died when several players simultaneously had "scheduling" issues

>Fast forward a few years later
>New group, new DM
>DM basically allowed us to do whatever we wanted, 3rd party included
>Table full of optimized munchkins
>Combat was a contest of winning initiative so that player could get a turn killing the bad guys
>None of us players wanted to RP, and DM didn't give much opportunity to do so
>Interest in game dwindled fast, game died within two months

Be careful what you wish for.

This. You'd have to work hard to be actively useless, and if the rest of the group are insisting you play a highly specific build, that's just being assholes.

The problem is that you need a balance of both

No, using the book, right here
d20pfsrd.com/skills/knowledge/

When you have to go running to wildly unlikely examples to make your argument, it's probably time to just gracefully concede.

I just meant that the topic was about clerics being healbots, which covers a fairly narrow section of magic, and "useful spells" can conceivably cover everything else.
Clerics are expected to be useful just like everyone else, but that doesn't mean they need to be healing all the time.

I didn't say you need to be healing all the time (in fact optimized clerics rarely heal because they're more useful as buffers/debuffers) I said that if you don't heal or use useful for the situation spells a fighter might think you're non desirable.

Like I said, you're assuming edition. Didn't even link to a D&D related one at that.

Still doesn't explain why a Fighter would be so booty-bothered about a Cleric not casting healing spells, especially since he's far from an expert on the topic.

So you're arguing against something that nobody has suggested?

I dunno, virtue and deathwatch are really shitty, I would say they're never useful

>OP complains about groups relegating clerics to healbots, rogues to trapfinders, rangers to trackers etc. and players getting pissed at others when they don't play as their personal servants
>half the replies are "Don't be so selfish OP, now get back to playing the stereotype!"
For fuck's sake.

>What a shitty pilot youre
>You can opinate because you aren't one
Well, I know you don't land helicopters through buildings to beging with, doesn't need to be an expert on that

Only rogues can trapfind and disable magic traps
Rangers track better than anyone else
Cleric healbot is stupid, buff/debuff you're so much better at that

Someone said that you shouldn't know in universe if other player is useful, and I said that (in case of cleric) you don't heal nor cast useful for the situation spells I should totally know if you're in universe uself. So yeah, is relevant to the conversation, the argument just got longer than it needed to be because people want to be right

>Not casting healing spells is the equivalent of flying a helicopter through a building

It's more like you travelling to France and then calling everyone there a shitty Frenchman because they aren't wearing berets, carrying baguettes, or eating snails. As if your mental image of what makes a good Frenchman applies to all people living in France when you don't even live there.

Again with the healing spells, read my goddamn posts, I mentioned more than just healing.

If you mean then there's a hell of a large difference between knowing if someone is useful or optimal.

Yes, a Fighter could recognize that someone is doing nothing. However, a fighter will not know if the Cleric casting Morarian's Guided Doves is more or less efficient than him casting Saint Senth's Swans.

So once again, you're arguing against something that nobody has actually claimed.

What kind of spells you want to pick if you don't mind me asking?

In general it's best if the party are roughly similar. The worst is when you have a couple rollplayers and a couple roleplayers. I know what I prefer between those two things, but the greater point is that the party is better off if everyone falls on roughly the same side of that particular spectrum.

Seriously though, never take shit from people for trying to roleplay in a roleplaying game.

I'm guessing you have no idea who that literal autist is.

What's with D&D attracting GMs who like to throw insane stuff at players? Even worse when it's one of those guys who thinks that his purpose as GM is to compete against players.

This has never been a thing in any group I'm a part of. The players generally either think it's cool when a priest uses their thematic spells, or they are indifferent.

I disagree with the general feeling of the tread.
People in a party have a role to fill, thats the whole point of people working together to covor skills the others dont have.
>Fighter is out the front taking on the waves of foes
>Ranger is taking out people with his bow, tracking people and stopping the party from getting lost
>Thief is picking locks and checking for traps

If you wanna play a party of all fighters thats cool, but the way I see it is WHY are you with them. What do you bring to the table. I got friends that Roleplay with all the time but I wouldnt go on a camping hoilday with them as they don't have the skills to survive being outside for more then 4 hours at a time. But if I want to set up a LAN game, they will have qauke up and running before I can open a can of coke.

I think I would be annoyed that your not pulling your weight

>or they are indifirrerent
Till someone dies because they cleric not only doesn't cure wounds he also casts bless water in the middle of the combat.

Why is it vital to your character to be non-optimal? Why do you play a system that actively discourages non-optimal builds?

I think it's a matter of expectations. It isn't the fault of a Cleric player if he builds his Cleric for dealing damage rather than healing, assuming it isn't an actively terrible way to play a Cleric. If anything, it would be the fault of the party members for assuming that the Cleric can only do the things they thought he could.

To go over your examples, yes a party does need some balance, but what happens when somebody shows up with a Ranger who uses two swords to take out waves of foes, branched out his skills so he could pick locks and find traps just fine, and can still track people thanks to his class features? Is it wrong to play a character that doesn't fit into that stereotypical niche party role? From an in-character perspective, is this ranger going to be rejected because he isn't as good at shooting a bow, as though that's crucial to the party's success?

The real answer is that players should be discussing their characters before the game even begins, to avoid situations where somebody listens to a quick blurb about what you plan on playing, only for it to throw them off due to these mis-matched expectations.

But in no case is it the fault of someone who wanted to try doing something different. After all, what happens if the Cleric player builds his Cleric as normal, only to discover that the party Fighter who he had planned on healing and having protect him decided to go for a more glass-cannon style setup with a two-handed weapon, or a dexterity or ranged build? Is a Fighter without a shield so different from a Cleric without Cure Light Wounds? They're both just options on a list, and expecting a player to pick a specific option from those lists 100% of the time is going to end up in somebody getting upset about somebody else's choice eventually.

>Not casting Cure Wounds means you obviously play like a retard and actively try to be useless

I thought we already established the difference between not being optimal and not being useful?

I agree that characters should have a role in the party, and that they should be competent in it. Why else are they in a party?

But it should not be defined by your class. A cleric shouldn't be forced into the healing role.

>It's the fault of the group for assume the cleric would be fulfilling the cleric's role (whatever it's)
what?
Sure, if you still are a "cleric" (rolewise) wouldn't be a problem even if you aren't optimal, but if you go out of your way to be as different of a cleric as possible (and have no back up from your class because is not intended to not be a cleric) then is your fault

>I'll ignore half of his posts, that's will show him

So it comes down to session 0
and the not playing D&D meme

How? With the example I just gave, if I tell the group I'm going to play a Fighter, show up with an Archer, and they built all of their characters as squishy backliners because they assumed I would be some sort of tank, is that my fault for doing something perfectly reasonable within the class, or theirs for assuming what the character would be?

Why not? You seemed content to ignore the fact that nobody actually said the things you're making your strawman argument against.

>D&D
I think this problem could happen in every system with classes. A class is a predefined role with features that help, improve and make you shine at that role (supposedly of course), I don't think is "the group's fault" for assuming you're going to fit that role.

I agree that this should be fixed in session 0, you inform your group of what you want to play and how to play it, then the group will try to fill the holes you left by not "being" what your class is. If what remains is still a competent group, perfect, if what remains has problems because they can't fulfil what you decided to not play well, find a common ground

Ranger isn't only bow dude, in fact it can be twf dude or swordandboard dude, dunno why you say is bow dude only (if we're talking about D&D that's it you get to choose between those combat styles), the example would be like a ranger who knows shit about nature, tracking and being outdoorsy


Also, btw, if we're talking about "optimal" clerics, those who heal aren't optimal, so talking about "healing clerics" as optimal makes me giggle

Also also, yeah, this guy session 0 motherfuckers, talk about things beforehanded, that also goes for the DMs

Yes, because religions and priests don't exist in any game but D&D.

yeah, is your fault to not inform your group.

If I say I'm going to play a wizard, and omit any other information, and then show with a wizard with 8 Int (so I can't cast spells) would it be my fault? yes, it would